


The Long Way

by cjmarlowe



Category: Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Canon Queer Character, Futurefic, Long time coming, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 19:56:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2824205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/pseuds/cjmarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was why it was a terrible thing to have your best years in high school. If there was nowhere to go but down, what was the point? Sometimes that comforted Duck when he thought about how he once hit rock bottom, that his best years might be yet to come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [godofwine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/godofwine/gifts).



"Remember this?" said Buddy, pointing up at the scarred branch of the oak tree not far past the school grounds. Kids were out for the summer and a crew was building something new out there, bright plastic instead of the old wood-frame that Duck remembered.

"There used to be a swing there," said Duck, squinting up at it. "I don't even remember when that came down. Must've been ages ago."

"Fifteen years, give or take," said Buddy. "One day it was there and the next it was gone."

Duck had the feeling Buddy was trying to make some kind of analogy there and he could guess what it was, too, but he didn't ask. Buddy would say what he had to say when he was good and ready and Duck wasn't the type to push him into it anyway.

"Fell off it when I was five," said Duck. "Split my knee open. Fell off when I was six, too. And seven."

"Yeah, you didn't really develop an interest in athletics until we were in high school," said Buddy.

Duck chuckled. "Didn't develop an interest because I wanted to _play_ them."

"Yeah, well, I didn't know that at the time, did I?"

Sometimes Duck wondered if he _had_ known, in the back of his head. If someone would've known, it would've been Buddy, and he was sharper back then. When it came to things like that, anyway.

They looked for a few moments longer, then started up the sidewalk again. 

Buddy didn't ask him to go for a walk; that would've been strange. Buddy asked him to go for a cup of coffee and it was just too nice out to drive, but so far they've been taking the scenic route, a kind of a memory lane for a time Duck didn't necessarily have a lot of memories.

"Used to play baseball there," said Buddy, pointing at what used to be an empty field but now held a row of new houses. New several years ago, anyway.

"Yeah, I know," said Duck.

"Ought to," said Buddy. "You were at every game. Shame things can't stay the same, isn't it?"

"Don't know about that," said Duck. "Pretty happy with some of my changes."

This was why it was a terrible thing to have your best years in high school. If there was nowhere to go but down, what was the point? Sometimes that comforted him when he thought about how he once hit rock bottom; his best years might be yet to come.

"It's a done deal now, you know, me and Carol."

Duck knew that, partly because he'd been there by Buddy's side through the whole thing, and partly because Sandra told him over a cup of coffee the other day and Sandra always knew what was going on. He'd been waiting for some signal from Buddy, though, that it was okay to bring it up. That he was ready to say.

"Figure it was probably a done deal a long time ago and all there was left was the paperwork," said Duck after a moment. "Unless you were thinking...?"

"I wasn't," said Buddy. If he was thinking about reconciling with Carol, Duck probably wasn't the first person he'd tell anyway. "And now the papers are filed too. Guess it never felt quite final till that. You're lucky you never got married."

"Not really," said Duck. He usually thought about what he said, measured and economised his words, but those ones just slipped right out.

"Sorry," said Buddy, but Duck wasn't looking for an apology. He knew there were some things Buddy got and some he didn't and right now Duck wasn't going to fault him for thinking about the failures in his own life rather than the challenges in Duck's. "Over under that tree's where I had my first kiss."

"Really?" said Duck, looking up and down the street then focussing back on the tree again, another old oak that spread low and wide. "Me too."

Buddy elbowed him like he was kidding but Duck was dead serious. "Becky Burnett," he said. "I didn't say it was my first _good_ kiss. That came later."

"Theresa Burnett," said Buddy with a surprised laugh.

"The older woman," said Duck. "Can't say I'm surprised."

"Wasn't so much my choice as hers," admitted Buddy. "I felt a little bit ambushed."

"That makes two of us, then," said Duck, shaking his head as they walked past. "Becky must've learnt it from her sister."

"Dated her, though," Buddy went on after a moment. "Two months, maybe."

"Yeah, I remember that too," said Duck, a little more softly.

He could feel Buddy's eyes on him for a moment, and he started to say, "We—" but then he never finished the thought. And much as Duck knew about him, an embroiled as he'd become in Buddy's life and Buddy's dramas, he didn't know where that thought had been going.

There were no more landmarks as they turned up the street to Iggy's, or if there were Buddy didn't take the time to point them out. Not all of Duck's memories of Wilby were good ones, and not all of them were things he cared to share. He imagined Buddy probably felt the same.

"Buy you a coffee," said Buddy as he pushed open the door.

"Careful, that's the best offer I've had in a while."

Sandra ducked into the back when Buddy came in and Emily was off at university now so Rosa served them, nice kid from the high school who Duck knew was saving up for a car for her family. Duck always tipped her as well as he could.

They sat by the window, even though Duck started for the back corner, and Buddy didn't bring up any more memories. He didn't bring up anything at all, not for a long while.

"You're looking at that cup like you filled it with liquid courage when I wasn't looking," said Duck finally.

"It's just," said Buddy, and shook his head and smiled down at the half empty mug only it wasn't a smile, not exactly, just a wry and awkward pulling of his lips. "You ever think about what it would've been like if we'd been each other's first kiss, under that tree?"

"Jesus, Buddy," said Duck, pushing his own mug away and rubbing his hand over his hair, not even sure what to do with that. "What are you even talking about?"

"I'm serious," said Buddy. "If you'd been brave enough to ask and I'd been brave enough to say yes."

"That's not bravery," insisted Duck. It was still habit to glance side to side to see who might be listening to their conversation. Things might've settled down again but Wilby was still Wilby. "You don't need to do this."

"No, but maybe I ought to," said Buddy. "What do you think would've happened?"

"Fine," said Duck. "Fine. What do I think would've happened? It would've been a disaster. You were still prince of the island and I still had my rebellious phase ahead of me and we would've been a walking disaster. You would've lost your scholarship and resented me for it and I would've resented you for not being the person I built up in my head."

"Wow," said Buddy. "Okay."

"So don't ask questions like that," said Duck. "Just...of course I thought about it. You've always known that."

"Maybe not always," said Buddy, but that admission alone said it was close enough. "Our whole lives could've happened different."

"Different doesn't mean better," said Duck. He was pretty sure he wasn't wrong. Whatever daydreams he might've had once upon a time were better off being just that. When they were idiot teenage boys he just wasn't _ready_ for it, much as he might have wanted it. He had too much shit to sort out yet.

"Doesn't mean worse either," said Buddy. He took a slow sip of his coffee, about ten times as much motion as actual drinking. "And what if we did it now?"

"Now I _know_ you slipped something in there."

The question wasn't out of the blue, not exactly. And he knew it wasn't hypothetical, no matter how carefully it was worded. Nobody, not Buddy and not anybody, would ask something like that completely hypothetically. Nobody Duck knew was that cruel.

He also knew it had been a challenging couple of years, for both of them, and they were both...not old, but too old to be making rash decisions. They hadn't been through the same things, but they'd both been through too much.

"Would it be...what did you call it? A walking disaster?"

"Well, that kind of depends on you," said Duck, toying with his cup and not quite meeting Buddy's eyes. "I'm nobody's rebound, especially not yours. You decide maybe this isn't something you're into, and there's no coming back from it the way things were before."

"Carol and I were over last year," said Buddy. "Maybe even before that, but I had to try. Sandra and I were over with last year." Dan was over last year too, in a wistful but not damaged parting. "There's been nobody since then."

"So you're desperate."

"That's not what I said," said Buddy, and huffed out a sigh. Duck wasn't needling him to be an asshole. He was doing it because, well, god damn it Buddy had to think about what he was doing here. "I wanted to wait, until the t's were dotted and the i's were crossed."

"In general?"

"So you'd know that I meant it," said Buddy. "So you'd know it wasn't cheating and you'd know there was no easy going back to something else."

"Look," said Duck, and ran his hand over his hair again and quashed the adolescent fantasies that might cloud his judgment because they'd always been only that. "Do I need to point out the elephant in the room?" The thing unsaid, that had always been the biggest obstacle. Duck had always known he was gay, and he'd always known that Buddy wasn't, and that was just how it _was_.

"I'm not so old I can't learn some new tricks," said Buddy. "I'd like to. But I guess that's up to you, if you have space in your life for someone who has some catching up to do."

Duck didn't answer. He leaned back in his chair and sipped his coffee and gave himself the space to think about it, think about it in real terms, in practical terms. "After all this," he said finally, "I'm not going back into the closet for anybody. Not even you."

"Didn't ask you to," said Buddy. There was no way he knew what he was offering, no way he could actually understand it, but he was clearly and painfully sincere all the same.

"And I'm not interested in being your mid-life crisis."

Buddy gave his coffee a half-smile again, rueful but not unhappy. "You might not have noticed, what with your interrogation," he said, "but nobody's having a crisis here."

"So look me in the eye and say that, then," said Duck. Not so anybody else could hear it. Just him.

"I think maybe," he said, putting his coffee down and lifting his eyes to meet Duck's, "that after a lifetime of wrong choices, I'm about ready to make a right one. And I'm hoping maybe you might want to give that a shot, too."

And when Duck was quiet rather than giving him an answer, he reached out and placed his hand over Duck's and didn't let go. Not when Rosa refilled their coffees. Not when Helen and Sid Gaudet took the table next to theirs. Not for anybody.

"Well," said Duck after a moment, "I guess I'm about due for another scandal. How about you?"

His adolescent fantasies had long since given way to something different, something solid and real. He was a different person and Buddy was a different person, but it was still _Buddy_ and somewhere, deep inside, Duck had never stopped hoping. Just a little.

"I think I've already answered that question."

Duck was pretty sure his own best days were ahead of him, but maybe Buddy's best days were still ahead of him too, after all. All things considered, it was worth finding out.


End file.
